The Weekend Away at Old Woman Creek

The weekend away: The 2013 Aquatic Resources class trip to Old Woman Creek National Estuarine Research Reserve

 By: Chelsea and Kim

Old woman creek  is a 572 acre naturally formed estuary used as a field laboratory in Huron Ohio. An estuary is identified as an area where inland waters, such as creeks and rivers, combine with water from the sea, or in this case—Lake Erie.

The aquatic resources adventures took off Saturday morning with a canoe trip down the creek to learn the layers of monitoring needed to maintain the health of the water system and attain samples of algae and macroinveretbrates…

CANOEING

With two to a canoe and led by a guide in a kayak, the fleet disembarked into Old Woman Creek around 9am on Saturday morning.

Class in canoes

The first view we encountered was a famous lotus filled landscape. In the 1800's a painter, by the name of Charles Curran, painted a portrait of his newlywed wife picking flowers from the blooming lotus plants. Comparing this painting to todays, it is easy to discern that it is the same place. Despite industrial revolutions and 150 years, the landscape has remained remarkably similar and unperturbed. Lotus and lilies grow in the pelagic zone, indicating the presence of deeper water, while the growth of reeds and sedges occur in Littoral zone.

Painting by Charles Curran

Lotus view (not season to bloom)

Next we came upon evidence of the extensive monitoring done by researchers to ensure the health of the aquatic system—a monitoring device that takes temperature and other readings to send to a remote weather service station. An aquatic system can be monitored on numerous levels including testing the water itself, identifying the biodiversity of algae and macroinvertebrates able to live in the water as well as identifying that of invertebrates both in the water and the surrounding watershed area. Throughout the canoe expedition we saw other research sites set up for research and quality assessment measuring alike. The water habitat and surrounding areas are greatly influenced by the water quality, emphasizing the need for routine measurements which is why dissolved oxygen, pH and biodiversity assays are regularly assessed and documented.

Sampling area for Macroinvertebrates.
Located on the underside of the leaves

MACROINVERTEBRATES

Our first canoe stop was amid the lotus plants to collect macroinvertebrates from the underside of their leaves. Placed in collection tubes filled with creek water, we collected a variety of macroinvertebrates by closely watching for their movement on the lotus leaves and storing them for identification in the lab in the afternoon. Identifying these give us a sampling of biodiversity of the water system and whether the organisms seen are pollution tolerant, intolerant or only are found in the presence of certain water components. Knowing the environmental niche of the invertebrates and comparing the niche overlap between the invertebrates found in the water system, scientists can develop a well-rounded picture of the make-up of the water.

Egret

VERTEBRATES

While continuing our canoe expedition, Kingfishers, Great Blue Herons, Red-Winged Blackbirds, Bald Eagle, Great Egrets and other wildlife flew or soared nearby. Up in the trees, beyond the expanse of lotus plants were Bald Eagle nests. Thirty years ago the number of bald eagle nests had dwindled down to a total of four. The eagles were counted, monitored and protected over the past three decades and from that have managed to grow to a population including 250 nests—the number needed for the bald eagle population to sustain itself. Other wildlife populations are being as closely monitored and strengthened as the bald eagles had been, demonstrating another layer present in a healthy, balanced watershed community.

INVASIVE SPECIES

Area actively being restored.
Phragmites is still present but native
species of plants are being reintroduced.

Phragmites is a European plant growing invasively in the US.  Living in wetlands area, where there is a constant supply of water, Phragmites grows at an alarming rate where eighty percent of Phragmites seeds are viable. Phragmites takes over quickly causing eutrophication and drying of the area all of which affect numerous species previously reliant on the wetland habitat. Fire does not stop its growth and flooding, while effective, is not plausible due to the detrimental effect that would have on the rest of the watershed, so the process of removing Phragmites is very slowly being achieved. Researchers have found that the most effective destruction of this plant is by using sprays on it when the plant is in the phase of preparing its winter stores. The most significant part of ridding Phragmites from the watershed is performing plant restoration, which is planting non-invasive species of plants where Phragmites was removed from so that it does not encroach right back in. Coconut logs are used to transport and then stabilize in place the non-invasive plants used to fill in the space left by Phragmites.

Scenery of the upper reaches

CANOEING CONTINUED

We canoed into the upper reaches of the creek (the slightly lower order streams) where we saw the increasing influence of the riparian zone with leaves, seeds, etc. more frequently in our path. On the way back, a few of the canoes collected algae samples by using a tow line so that this afternoon we could assess the algae and eutrophication of the stream.

DIP NET AND FISH SEINE

Chelsea and Allison modeling
proper fish seining attire

Cameron encouraging fish into the net while Meaghan and
Julie man the poles

Back on shore, the canoes were each rinsed off and put away as we put on waders and prepared to collect samples off shore using dip nets and fish seine. Dip nets are used to collect macroinvertebrate samples at the water-air interface. Using a flat bottomed net attached to a pole, the net is scraped against the stream substrate at least three times to stir up what is living there. Those inhabitants are then caught in the net itself and when pulled to the surface, can be looked through and collected as needed. While some people collected dip net samples, a larger group began to collect fish with a fish seine. A fishing net connected by two poles and one person holds each pole so that the net is held vertically in the water. Standing so that the net makes a horseshoe shape, the two individuals begin to walk forward while a group of other people, a distance away, walk towards the net trying to scare the fish to swim in that direction. The pole holders slowly walk in together closing the horseshoe shape into a sphere where the net is closed around the fish that swam into the net. The closed net is pulled onto the shoreline carefully so the fish cannot swim away and the diversity of the fish caught is analyzed. The 3-4 seining attempts yielded only 2 different families of fish—Cyprinidae (emerald shiner) and Gobiidae (round Gobi). The macroinvertebrates collected from the dip netting were saved for identification in the lab.

LUNCH BREAK

Algae and Macroinvertebrates are ideal bioindicators because of their position on the food chain. Usually the bottom most link, the health, presence and diversity of these organisms have a direct influence on everything else within the system. The world is made up of 70% water and living within that is Plankton which provides the earth with more overall oxygen than trees. To get the most accurate picture of how well a water system is functioning, looking at the smallest and yet most fundamental portion is warranted. So while we ate, highest on the food chain, our guide prepared the lab so we could go and identify the family and genus of lowest.

MICROSCOPY

Hemiptera

Stereoscopes and Microscopes were set out in the lab/education room within the Old Woman’s Creek Visitor’s Center. Depending on which scope was closest, we split the class to look at an identify algae and macroinvertebrates. Soaking the invertebrates in 70% Ethanol, we began to identify the order of the different organisms and then, using identification guides, further analyzed the organism to determine family. Within the Class Insecta, we identified 8 different families. Within the Class Crustacea we found 3 different families.

Class	Order	Family
Insecta	Coleoptera	Haliplidae (crawling water beetle)
	Diptera	Stratiomyidae (soldier fly)
	Ephemeroptera	Baetidae (small minnow mayfly)
	Hemiptera	Gerridae (water strider); Corixidae (water boatman); Belostomatidae (giant water bug)
	Odonata	Coenagrionidae (narrow-winged damselfly); Libellulidae (Dragonfly)

Phylum	Class	Order
Crustacea (subphylum)	Cladocera	Daphnia; Bosmina
	Malacostracan	Amphipoda (water scud)
Gastrotrich

On the Algal side of things, we identified to Class and then grouped them by Phylum. The diversity within the algae specimens was impressive including 9 different Phyla and 54 Classes! All of those were found within the few hours we spent in the lab. Also on these slides were organisms from the Phyla Cercozoa and Ciliophora. Had we only found one kind of plankton or just leeches and snails then, as our guide stated, “the water would suck”.

Kingdom	Phylum	Class
Bacteria	Proteobacteria	Beggiatoa (genus)
	Cyanobacteria	Anabaena (genus); Cylindrospermum; Geitlerinema; Leibleinia; Merismopedia; Pseudanabaena
Plantae	Cholorphyta	Ankistrodesmus; Characium; Cladophora; Closterium; Cosmarium; Desmosdesmus; Echinosphaerella; Kirchneriella; Monoraphidium; Oedogonium; Pediastrum; Scenedesmus; Tetrastrum
Protista	Cercozoa	Testate Amoebae
	Ciliophora	Vorticella; Paramecia; Stentor
	Dinophyta	Gymnodinium
	Euglenophyta	Euglena; Lepocinclis; Phacus; Trachelomonas
Stramenopila	Bacillariophyta	Achnanthidium; Amphora; Aulocoseira; Bacillaria; Cocconeis; Cyclotella; Cymbella; Encyonema; Eunotia; Frustulia; Gomphonema; Gyrosigma; Hippodonta; Melosira varians; Navicula; Nitzschia; Pinnularia; Placonceis; Planothidium; Pseudostaurosira; Sellaphora; Stephanodiscus; Surirella; Synedra; Tryblionella; Ulnaria
	Chrysophyta	Dinobryon
	Synurophyta	Synura
	Tribophyta	Centritractus

THE VISITOR CENTER

Pure water made on site

While taking a break from identifying organisms, our guide gave us a tour of the Visitor Center which includes the research center for Old Woman Creek. Our guide had taken water samples from our trip in the morning to do chemical testing on. Chemical testing gives pulse data for a water system, meaning that the information is only applicable to a single moment in time. The water this morning had a pH of 7. The water from the beach (where we did the fish seine) had a dissolved oxygen level of 6.3. That reading had been taken in the morning before the sun came out. The dissolved oxygen level of the sample taken during the canoe trip later morning (after the influence of the sun) was 8.3. The research center is set up to do routine monitoring of the watershed area. There are devices to concentrate the algae to obtain counts of plankton, harmful blooms, etc. and they make pure H2O on site (using city water to wash containers or something similar can obscure the water sample and cause less accurate readings).  Other research instruments and containers are in rooms throughout the research station from past and current research projects.

Sunday at Old Woman’s Creek:

MAGEE’S MARSH AND SHELDON MARSH

On our last day at Old Woman’s Creek we visited two separate marshes: Magee’s Marsh and Sheldon Marsh. Unfortunately, 92% of Ohio’s wet lands have been destroyed which has ruined many crucial habitats for animals such as birds, fish, and plankton.  At these marshes we observed several different types of plants and some interesting animals. We saw how much of an impact Phragmites australis and Typha angustifolia has had on the marshes in this area. These plants have taken over vast areas of the marsh leaving less room for the native cattails, Typha latifolia, and other native plants to grow.